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Your Guide to Post-Holiday Storage

The holiday season brings a lot of things: friends, family, delicious meals and treats, plus lots of decorations… Whether it’s a full house or just your desk, it’s fun to decorate! Music plays in the background, treats are set out and everyone puts their best designing foot forward.

Once the New Year arrives, we find ourselves in a quite different place. As much as we loved the act of decorating, we find ourselves dreading the clean up.

But, there’s a way to avoid this feeling – a way to make it more fun. Get organized!

With our tips below, you can enjoy finding a specific place in storage for each of your items and may even create some space for new decorations you find.

Use Clear Bins

While those green and red themed bins at Target may suit the season, they can also be an absolute pain when trying to locate items next year. Even if you label your bins, it’s still tricky to find exactly what you’re looking for. Using clear bins will make it easier to see what is in the bin. So, when it comes to finding that particular snowman serving tray with a spot for veggie dip, you won’t spend a half hour opening each box, rooting around, and creating chaos in your once organized boxes.

Organize by Color

For whatever reason, every holiday season has its own trendy color. Last year was blush pink and this year is turquoise blue, but two trendy colors don’t always go well together in practice. So put those clear bins to use and sort your hand towels, candles, dishware and sparkly things by color. That way you can easily see the different colors you have and what might look best together.

Take Care of Breakables

You can easily purchase a durable plastic bin with specialty dividers inside, but those get pricey. Another option is to create dividers using cardboard pieces around your home, like the one below.

Donate!

Reuse or Repurpose!

What’s broken may not necessarily be a lost cause. If you’re crafty, you can easily turn outdated or damaged decorations into something beautifully new. Check out this articlewith different examples ranging from broken ornaments to old tinsel strands.

(At the Very Least) Recycle

If you have broken items that won’t be accepted as donations and you aren’t really the crafty type, double-check what can or can’t be recycled. If you aren’t sure, check in with your local recycling provider or you can also use this quick décor recycling guideas well.

Store Everything Together

Avoid searching your home last minute for that one missing bin that you need and keep all of you decorations in one particular area. Whether it’s in a specific closet or area in your basement, make sure that you keep your bins together. If you are able to add shelving to a space, consider purchasing some basic metal storage racks (link). This way you could even have one shelf per holiday!

Just look at how cute all of your decorations could be, even in storage!